


what he should have had

by dyllpickless



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling, Good Husband Dave Katz, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Other, Past Abuse, but somehow it's also really happy and celebratory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23695552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyllpickless/pseuds/dyllpickless
Summary: sometimes, at night when klaus and dave are cuddled together in their bed—klaus safe and curled up in dave’s arms—klaus will cry.
Relationships: Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98





	what he should have had

sometimes, at night when klaus and dave are cuddled together in their bed—klaus safe and curled up in dave’s arms—klaus will cry. it won’t be out of sadness, per se, but it certainly won’t be out of joy either. he’ll hold onto dave, clutch onto the sheets, whatever it takes to make sure he isn’t ripped away by the waves in his mind, which threaten to steal him away from his sunshine. he cries and he holds on and he rides it out, and dave holds him close and strokes his hair and whispers soothing words, because there’s nothing that either of them can do. neither person can fix the past, even when one has a brother who can time travel and the pair has already leapt fifty years.

klaus cries, not because he’s sad, but because he’s in mourning. he mourns what he should have had: years without pain, without suffering, without fear. once he’d escaped the academy, he was supposed to have been free. instead, he ran out of a cage and stumbled into a lion’s den. he left his first hell, and tripped into many, many others. yelling voices, hurting hands, cruel words, twisted actions. klaus was torn apart and thrown about and then discarded like an unwanted plaything by those he tricked himself into trusting.

he cries because now he knows what he should have had. he should have been held and loved, treated with kindness, told he was a beauty to be beheld by the entire world. it hurts more now than it did then. then, he didn’t know how good he was supposed to have it. now, looking back, held safe and tight and warm and happy in dave’s arms, he knows how horrible it all was. he knows he had it bad. and at night, in their cabin in the woods, in the arms of his husband, surrounded by their pets, and the life they built, klaus loses his ability to laugh it all off. so he does the one thing he has left to do: cry. and it’s okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i can't tell if this is a vent fic or not... i think it may be... oops?  
> thank you to @princejoopie for reading over it!  
> dedicated to the tua discord! ily guys sm <333


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